World War II (Morgen die ganze Welt)
World War II (WWII or WW2), also known as the Second World War (after the recent Great War, World War I), was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1947, though related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allied Powers and the Axis Powers. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. In a state of "total war", the major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust (during which approximately 11-17 million people were killed) and the strategic bombing of industrial and population centres (during which approximately ten million people were killed, including the widespread use of weapons of mass destruction in combat, including nuclear, chemical and biological weapons), it resulted in an estimated 150 million to 195 million fatalities. These made World War II by far the largest and deadliest conflict in human history. The Empire of Japan aimed to dominate Asia and the Pacific and was already at war with the Republic of China in 1937, but the world war is generally said to have begun on 1 September 1939 with the German invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and subsequent declarations of war on Nazi Germany by France and the British Empire. From late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Nazi Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis Powers with the Kingdom of Italy and the Empire of Japan. Following the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Nazi Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, the Second Polish Republic, Kingdom of Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. The United Kingdom and the British Empire were the only Allied forces continuing the fight against the Axis, with the Western Desert Campaign in North Africa and the East African Campaign in the Horn of Africa as well as the long-running Battle of the Atlantic. In June 1941, the European Axis powers led by Nazi Germany launched an invasion of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of the Soviet Union, opening the largest land theatre of war in history, the Eastern Front which trapped the major part of the Axis' military forces into a war of attrition. In December 1941, the Empire of Japan attacked the United States and launched the Japanese invasion of Malaya in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, and Nazi Germany was defeated in the Second Battle of El Alamein in North Africa and then, decisively, at the Battle of Stalingrad in the Soviet Union. In 1943, the first widespread use of weapons of mass destruction in human history occured when Nazi Germany, after a series of German defeats on the Eastern Front, won the critical Battle of Kursk, which was the turning point of World War II. In the Battle of Kursk, the German Wehrmacht released massive amounts of chemical weapons which resulted in over one million casualties. After a series of German victories on the Eastern Front after the Battle of Kursk, Nazi Germany finally won the critical Second Battle of Moscow and the Second Battle of Stalingrad. The Allied invasion of Sicily would become the worst Allied defeat in history after German panzer divisions were transferred from the Soviet Union to Sicily. The Kingdom of Italy, after a series of Axis defeats, emerged victorious in the Mediterranean, Middle East and African theatre. After a series of Allied victories in the Pacific, the Axis lost the initiative and undertook strategic retreat on all fronts. In 1944, the Western Allies invaded France in Operation: Overlord, but were defeated by the Axis Powers, while the Battle of the Caucasus and the Battle of the Ural led to the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of the Soviet Union and the formation of the Union of Siberian Socialist Republics of the Soviet Union, the successor to the Soviet Union. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia during the Second Guangxi Campaign, the Battle of West Hunan and Burma Campaign in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the remaining Imperial Japanese Navy and captured key Western Pacific islands. The war in Europe ended with Operation: Sealion, the invasion of Great Britain by Nazi Germany culminating in the atomic bombings of London and Birmingham and capture of London by German panzer troops and the subsequent British unconditional surrender on 4 May 1946. The Empire of Japan, despite the destructive atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States on 6 August and 9 August respectively, led to Nazi Germany being able to deliver new advanced jet-powered fighter aircraft, submarines, and send reinforcements to Japan. By 1947, the Empire of Japan had thanks to the German support become an far more technologically advanced military superpower, beginning to regain most of its lost territories in the Pacific and China, and crippled the United States Navy in the Second Battle of the Coral Sea. With an invasion of North America imminent, the possibility of additional atomic bombings by Nazi Germany, and the rise of the Empire of Japan as an far more techologically advanced military superpower than prior to the outbreak of World War II, the United States surrendered in 1948. Thus ended the war in Asia, and the final destruction of the Allied bloc. World War II resulted in the rise of Nazi Germany as an recognized industrial and military superpower, with the world's most advanced air force (with the introduction of jet-powered aircraft and super-heavy bombers), and the world's largest navy, the German Kriegsmarine. The Kriegsmarine operated the world's most advanced fleet of conventional-powered submarines, the ''Type XXI'', the new ''Graf Zeppelin''-class aircraft carriers and the 63,000 tons aircraft carrier ''I'', and the world's largest battleships ever built, the massive ''H''-class super battleships. Category:Morgen die ganze Welt Category:World War II (Morgen die ganze Welt)